Date: 1705, 1714, 1732

"This has often made me compare the Virtues of great Men to your large China Jars: they make a fine Shew, and are Ornamental even to a Chimney; one would by the Bulk they appear in, and the Value that is set upon 'em, think they might be very useful, but look into a thousand of them, and you'll f...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1715

"The most accurate and often repeated Observation has taught us, that this Disease has happen'd as often as those Causes had preceeded, which have been able to cut off entirely or in great measure the Efflux of the Animal Spirits out of their Magazine the Brain, and hindring them from flowing int...

— Boerhaave, Herman (1668-1738)

Date: 1729

"What Numbers of learned Fools do we not meet with in large Libraries; from whose Works it is evident, that Knowledge must have lain in their Heads, as Furniture at an Upholder's; and the Treasure of the Brain was a Burden to them, instead of an Ornament!"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"But as to the mysterious Structure of the Brain itself, and the more abstruse Oeconomy of it, that he knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary Substance, compactly treasur'd up in infinite Millions of imperceptible Cells, that dispos'd in an unconceivable Order, are cluster'd to...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)